Four new national parks are being created in Nepal, three in the Himalayas, including Sagarmatha (Everest), to protect the mountain ecosystems with their wildlife and a fourth, the Royal Chitwan National Park (already gazetted) to protect the rich wildlife of the Terai. This park includes a now thriving population of great Indian rhino as well as tiger and gaur, and may be extended to include areas where both marsh crocodile and the highly endangered gharial are found. This ambitious new conservation programme was described by John Blower in Oryx, October 1973. Melvin Bolton is FAO Ecologist with the National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Project in Nepal.